(Dal giornale "Voran", organo del gruppo Sozialistische Alternative Voran [Alternativa Socialista Avanti])
The 35.000-strong demo in the capital Bonn on 18th of December was the last big event before the Christmas break of the student movement in Germany.
Protest actions are going on, but in most universities the strike is suspended. The activists prepare for the student congress 8th-11th January in Berlin.
The media reported that "400 anarchists" were rioting and trying to enter the forbidden zone around the government buildings (like in China around 1900).
This is a double lie: There was no anarchist contingent, only normal students. And we didn't try to enter the forbidden zone, we actually succeeded!
More than 5.000 students didn't stop at the place where the final manifestation was held. We marched straight on into the forbidden zone. There were only few policemen, they were surprised and did nothing apart from telling us This is illegal, get out of here", which was answered by laughter.
Then the police tried to form a blockade in front of the demo. But we just pushed them away, shouting No violence" and We are the people", the chants of the revolution in Eastern Germany. There were small skirmishes but nothing serious happened. We were marching straight up to Germany's equivalent of Downing Street Nr. 10, which is almost holy zone, where never ever mass demonstrators were seen. The police got into panic. They managed to form a new blockade, this time reinforced by fresh forces.
This blockade was irresponsible. The frontlines of the demo were squeezed between hundreds or thousand pushing forward and the police lines. Kohl has to go", Democracy", the chants were getting louder. They could have allowed us to go forward and to visit" the politicians. They knew that nothing violent would happen, but this would have been a symbolic defeat for the state - and would have cost some higher police ranks their nice pensions.
We pushed the police back a few metres, but didn't broke through their lines.
When they got some room to manoeuvre they charged the demo with their truncheons. Then the mounted police rushed in, beating the students from above the horses. In the end the police used CS-gas against the first lines of the demo. It became clear that we wouldn't get through without a bloody battle.
But there was no violence from the students at all, this was a pure police riot. The mainly young students didn't run away when the police attacked them.
They stood defiant and were shouting Shame on you". After an hour we ended the siege and got back to the manifestaition, people were proud, the mood was still very good.
The students didn't want riots. But they wanted to break the law. The media and the politicians portray us as being unpolitical", interested in career", unlike 68", they say they can understand our problems? Okay, let's show em, how we are!
It was an important step to break the undemocratic, almost feudal law which illegalises demos in the governemt zone. The media has kept silence on that defeat for the state, but many people were there, yet it is being discussed in many universities. This demo has shown that the movement is alive and kicking.
Most universities used the the cigarette trademark Lucky Strike" as the strike symbol on leaflets and in the Internet. If you click to their homepages now you can see Lucky" being crossed out and Angry" written in.
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